Henning's Headquarters

[Karl Henning]

So I hear.  Cheers, Tony!

[Karl Henning]

That's right ladies and Germans, right here in my living room, and sitting in my wife's easy chair, was the incredible Karl Henning!

Karl had just driven 3 hours from Cleveland, in the rain, but was still chipper and dapper and like a rapper was ready to rhyme about Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Organic Tofu!   

Karlbestowed us with some nice gifts, which were completely unexpected!

Unfortunately, poor Karlthen suffered a brutal and completely unwarranted physical assault when CATO cranked up - on a 5-speaker SurroundSound system -  a cassette tape of one of his quarter-tone works a la J.S. Bach, which was programmed into a sine-tone synthesizer on an Apple IIGS, which sounds like a wheezing, broken down vacuum cleaner...from Mars.

Somehow it had survived all the purges during the Clinton years!   

After bandaging his ears, we then stuffed him with homemade custard pie and pumpkin bread.  0:)

Chuckling at this memory!

[TheGSMoeller]

Chuckling at this memory!

Sounded like a good time! 

Reminds me, we should really begin to organize the Annual GMG Convention. But where it should be held, more specifically which country, is the biggest dilemma.

[Karl Henning]

The thought that, at last, the recording of Angular Whimsies may just eventually arrive . . .

Mercy, but that is funny . . . .

[Karl Henning]

Sounded like a good time! 

Reminds me, we should really begin to organize the Annual GMG Convention. But where it should be held, more specifically which country, is the biggest dilemma.

I vote for Boston.

Or Atlanta . . . .

[North Star]

I vote Finland

[Karl Henning]

Isn't Atlanta the capital of Finland?

[North Star]

Isn't Atlanta the capital of Finland?

That's right - and Tbilisi is the capital of Georgia.

[Karl Henning]

Insofar as it has been a working weekend, this has been a matter of communication with my publisher . . . there are items to be set in order so that I can complete a form for ASCAP for a 1 July deadline.

Problems which have arisen:  for some years I prepared scores in Finale, and my first problem is, where are those files? (I mean, I saved them to flash drives . . . somewhere.) The second: I do not have Finale on my new notebook, and I haven't searched around for the install disc.

The four pieces affected by immediate concerns are brief enough, that I 'rebuilt' them in Sibelius from my PDF samples with comparative speed.

[Karl Henning]

The Three Short Pieces for Organ, Op. 34 are now registered with ASCAP. It's been a productive weekend.

[Karl Henning]

The Three Short Pieces for Organ, Op. 34 are now registered with ASCAP. It's been a productive weekend.

Thoreau in Concord Jail, Op. 109, too.

[Karl Henning]

Sine Nomine have a new music director, and I have made his virtual acquaintance.

And the m.d. of Christ Church Cambridge (whom I've met more than once) recently returned e-mail, and the music has reached him. He does an "annual review" of scores at June's end, and schedules his entire year at one go.  Interesting to see if any Henningmusick (and I nearly do not remember just what I sent him) makes the cut.

. . . I do remember sending him the "service bits" (Preces, Suffrages) from the Evening Service in D, as I think he leads a monthly Evensong at CCC; also Paul's Kyrie.

[Karl Henning]

To-night will be Day Three of Re-Constructing the Studies in Impermanence. Will definitely reach the end, and have the pages re-flowed, for "shipment" this evening.  It's been a few years since last I played them, and I forgot just how many notes there are in the piece!  The good news is, in re-engraving the score, I stand by all those notes.  Makes me want to work the piece back up for a performance . . . though I know that means practicing.  But I know I can play this piece properly (though I do not yet have a recording which documents that certainty).

[Karl Henning]

Success!  Got to the end, then did some proofing on-screen in Sibelius, and sent it off to the publisher.

Printed hard copy this morning, ran through for another proof, and sent a list of Should this be tidier? to the publisher.  But overall, the piece looks much better.  And it cost me much less in blood . . . sheesh, I still remember, almost as if it were yesterday, how much I worked to get the Finale score of the Studies in Impermanence looking as good as I could manage — and still, as I say, this new Sibelius version looks much more polished.  And honestly, there were some elements in the Finale score (semiquaver triplets with occasional cautionary accidentals all across one page) which I could never get to stabilize in Finale.

For grins, I may scan the old version (which has been my performing copy all these years) for the communal bemusement.

Maybe it's just the composer in the bubble, but I have really enjoyed (not the work of reconstruction, so much, but) getting re-acquainted with the piece, every last note of it.  Hey, maybe they're not the best notes in the world — but they're my notes.  And I earnestly wish to play it again.

In fact, at the end of the score is the notation of the first performance: King's Chapel, Boston / 20 June 2006.  Sheesh, has it been seven years?  A funny thought occurred to me last night: not only do I want to find an occasion to play the piece again this autumn or the coming spring — but I want to play the piece on its tenth anniversary.

Isn't that bonkers?

[Karl Henning]

Okay: Studies in the Studies . . .

Starting out with a visually dramatic comparison.  Although the new page has the notation significantly larger (and ∴ much easier to read), it contains only 4mm. fewer than the old page:

[Karl Henning]

This is the Poco vivo, grazioso section;  the new page contains significantly more music (running to m.363) and yet is much easier to read than the old (which is unnecessarily spare, and runs only to m.346):

[Karl Henning]

And, the last two pages of the two respective versions. Again, "larger print," and ∴ much easier to read . . . but I also wanted to show (al que quiere) the re-metering of the Lento final section.  In the old version, I suppose I "made it work";  and I certainly had no trouble following the directions ; ) . . . but losing the initial notion of (only largely, not entirely) keeping the "base meter" in 5/4 is no grand sacrifice.

One more tweak I should make is to drag one of the systems from p.14 of the new to p.15, since with all the tempo changes, it gets rather visually busy between the staves.

Man, but I worked like a dog in Finale years ago (and I already had years of Finale flight time), and yet (as you can see) the result does not at all match watch emerged practically without effort in Sibelius.

[kishnevi]

It would appear that the Studies in Impermanence have achieved a sort of Permanence.

[Karl Henning]

Illusory! 0:)

[Karl Henning]

Long, long ago, for the musically modest choir at First Congo in Woburn, I composed an arrangement of the hymn-tune Kingsfold, using a text specific to Palm Sunday, for two-part choir & piano.  Because the text is specific to that one occasion in the church year, this piece has not had any particular performance history since its inaugural execution;  and I have long intended to 'fold in' a more general text.

From time to time, particularly when we've sung the tune Forest Green (same text meter as Kingsfold) at FCB, that intention came briefly out of cold storage, but never actually thawed.

To-day, dadfrazzanabit, I did it.